According to an AVA post by Rye N Flint, “Local rumor mill has it that Jim Shields permitted 24 out-of-county water trucks to fill up in Laytonville last year and supposedly drive our water to Humboldt? Any truth to that?”
First I’ve heard of it, so it better not be true.
Secondly, in the 20 years I’ve been with the Laytonville County Water District, I don’t believe we’ve ever had even 24 Mendocino County water trucks on our water hauler roster, let alone 24 water tenders from Humboldt County or any other county for that matter. On a temporary basis ranging from a single day to several weeks, we do have a few extra water trucks for highway and road construction, dust suppression, general construction, wildland fires, specialty entertainment events and festivals, and well drilling.
This year there are 15 water trucks on the water hauler roster, which is the approximate historic average over the years.
At the Laytonville County Water District we actually enforce our rules, one of which is our water cannot leave Mendocino County. If any water hauler violates that rule, their water hauling privileges are permanently revoked. If anyone has information regarding this issue please contact our office at (707) 984-6444 or email me at observer@pacific.net. I will also re-post a notice reminding water haulers of the rule and the penalties if violated.
We also investigate complaints from citizens regarding water haulers and take corrective action including suspension, revocation, and issuing cease and desist orders. In fact, we still have a prohibition order on water deliveries over a bridge south of Laytonville that was issued last Fall. Unlike the County we actually enforce our Ordinances.
To the best of my knowledge, there are only two water agencies in this County that provide regulated, i.e. legal, water deliveries on a regular basis, the city of Willits and my agency, the Laytonville County Water District. It’s my understanding that Willits currently provides reclaimed wastewater for its haulers, while my agency provides treated water. We’re in a fortunate situation because our aquifer is recharged with only one-half of our annual historical rainfall of about 66 inches. We use approximately 1.5 percent of our aquifer annually or about 60 million gallons, including approximately 5 million gallons of delivery sales.
I want to take a moment and point out that during the historic 2012-17 Drought, the District was not ordered by the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) to impose mandatory minimum water cuts of 25% on our customers because the District provided evidence of a reliable source of water from an aquifer that recharges annually. However, during that period the District approved two separate water conservation plans that impose year-round restrictions on outdoor irrigation and watering. While one set of rules, the “Two-Day Rule” is more severe than the “7-Day Rule”, both were employed at different times during the 2012-17 Drought.
However since 2017, restrictions on outdoor irrigation/watering remain in effect permanently, with the so-called “7-Day Rule” in full application year-round. Both rules result in substantial water conservation with the 7-Day Rule at approximately 10%-plus and the 2-Day Rule in excess of 20%.
As I’ve written in many columns and discussed numerous times on my radio show, even though I don’t grow or smoke pot, my private sector newspaper, the Mendocino County Observer, benefits from pot revenues, as does the public sector water agency that I manage. On an annual basis, approximately two-thirds of Water District income is derived from cannabis-growing residential customers, a number of pot-related commercial businesses, and out-of-district weed cultivators. Again these are all things that I’ve written and spoken about very frequently over the years. It’s one of the main reasons I want to make sure this County has a workable Cannabis Ordinance.
Probably close to ninety percent of water trucks on the road are bootleg operations that obtain their water illegally. These outlaws are responsible for nearly all of the illegal activities and damaged infrastructure associated with the “trucked-in water” complained about by the public. The County is aware of this situation but has always “looked the other way,” just as they’ve recently admitted they’ve done all along with illegal grows.
To a large degree this whole issue of water deliveries was created by the County because they have allowed parcels to be developed without any proof of a water source except in the instance of a major use permit where the owner/developer is required to “estimate” daily water usage. If that estimate exceeds 1,500 gallons per day a hydrological study is required. If the estimate is below that, presumably no study is required.
Remember a couple of years ago, when most likely in response to several columns I had written about “you can’t grow weed without water,” Supe Carre Brown said, “We have enough checks and balances on water.” I then wrote a follow-up column asking, “Just what exactly are these checks and balances?” The question, of course, went unanswered.
Just as a side note, one of the reasons our Small Is Beautiful Referendum coalition is not attempting to repeal the entire Pot Ordinance, as the so-called Drell Referendum would do, is because about 90 percent of it is a workable Ordinance with numerous needed protections, including there has to be a proven water source on the property or a hydrological study must be performed prior to drilling a well to determine if it will impact neighbors’ water sources.
We agree with the vast majority of County residents that the Ordinance’s main flaw obviously is the 10 percent Expansion provision which our Small Is Beautiful Referendum will repeal. Eliminate expansion, you eliminate the water use that goes with it. Enforce the Ordinance by eliminating the thousands of un-permitted and the outright illegal grows, and you eliminate the water use that goes with them. Of course for that scenario to succeed, it assumes — always a dangerous practice — that the County actually enforces a Referendum-cleansed New Ordinance. Even at that, it will take approximately five years to complete the job.
In response to Kirk Vodopals’ question about whether I have ever proposed waiving taxes for mom and pop growers, no I haven’t proposed that, but I have long proposed waiving all fees and charges for applicants seeking a County permit. Here’s why.
Twelve years ago, the Laytonville Water District stopped charging for so-called hook-up fees, which amounted to several thousand dollars. We had lots of property owners who had wells so they refused to be connected to city water because they didn’t want to pay hook-up fees, which were actually pretty reasonable. I told our Water Board if we eliminated our hook-up fees, most of the property owners would connect to the town system. While we’d lose that income in the short term, we’d gain income long-term because the former non-customers were now permanent, year around paying customers. The initial loss of income was more than made up after two years, if not sooner depending on water usage. The same thing would occur with the County’s Pot Program.
Initial application fees and charges would be lost but they would be made back over a short period of time because as legal, permitted cultivators they would be paying annual taxes instead of hiding out as non-compliant growers put off by pricey fees and charges.
I’ve always believed you can give a thousand reasons not to do something, but you only need one reason to do it.
(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, and is also the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)
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